One man's take on the future of newspapers

While the loss of jobs in the newspaper industry has slowed dramatically, the loss of every
journalist should bother everyone living in a community. If you choose to ignore the personal and
economic toll caused by layoffs within news organizations, consider this: Journalists are the
individuals who hold government accountable. And as society grows increasingly suspicious of its
government, there's a greater need for skilled reporters and editors to sort through it all for
you.

Here's
an interesting
take on the future of newspapers. It's a guest piece published on CNN.com. What I thought was
most on point was the conclusion: Newspapers matter greatly to our collective well-being, and those
who read but do not contribute are harming themselves.

The writer jabs at newspapers for being slow to react to the changing business model. That's a
fair criticism to an extent, but it should be noted that newspaper owners have been working
diligently to solve the Rubik's Cube that is their evolving business model.

Last night, for example, about a dozen editors and business leaders from
The Dispatch spent four hours with focus groups, evaluating the prototype for
the newspaper of
Columbus' future. The feedback was tremendous. Based on what we heard, we got a lot of things
right with our prototype, and identified a handful of things to refine.